


Infinite Stratos: Prismatic Fission

by orphan_account



Category: IS: Infinite Stratos
Genre: F/M, Multi, Original Character(s)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-04-28
Updated: 2015-05-15
Packaged: 2018-03-26 05:05:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,716
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3838198
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the near future, a young man goes off to attend a high-class academy made for the elite of the technological and military world. But, there's something special about the platform, and the school, that makes the experience very interesting for him...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Beginning

**Author's Note:**

> The writer for this is a friend of mine by the name of Garret Gordon. Feedback appreciated!

 

"My name is Garrett Gordon. I am 17 years old, from America." I told the woman behind the desk. She was fairly short, with short green hair, and horn-rimmed glasses over bright green eyes. She was wearing a light pink blouse, a creamy yellow dress, and high heels. The nametag she had pinned to her blouse said: Yamada Maia. Since I was in Japan, and the Japanese place the last name before the first, I assumed her name was Maia Yamada.

"Gordon-san, welcome. I am Yamada Maia, but at IS Academy, the students refer to me as Yamada-sensei. I teach the first-year students.”

“Well, it’s wonderful to meet you, Yamada-sensei.” I say, with a small bow.

Yamada-sensei held her fingers to her lips and giggled. “You seem like a very kind young man, and if that small bow is any indication, you know how to mind your manners. However, given both your age and your apparent skill with operating an IS, you will be learning in second-year classes."

"Well, that sounds about right. I was in my sophomore year of high school last year, and given what I know about the Japanese school system, I was in ‘high school’ here since then."

"Wonderful!" She clapped her hands together, tilted her head to my right, and smiled.

***

“Now then, I have a few questions for you. Please answer honestly. There are only three questions I need to ask."

"Okay. Ask away." I leaned back in my chair; this interview was a lot easier than I thought it would be. This was a piece of cake.

"You certainly seem confident about this." Yamada leaned forward; a light-hearted challenge played across her lips, crept into her genial smile. "Let's start with the question that you personally may be able to answer the most easily." She sat upright, and clasped her hands together. I could tell from the bluish glow cast across her face that she was looking at a digital display on her desk. "Gordon-san… it says here on your application that you have a personal IS."

"That I do." I had memorized the specs of my IS, as I was the one who built and programmed it from the ground up.

"Does it have a name?"

“Onyx Striker." I had thought of a name for it long before I even started building it.

"Onyx Striker, good. What are its specifications?" This was the question I was waiting for. I wanted to show her just what kind of a beast I had built.

“Okay. It has a core that I salvaged from a scrapped IS. 467 cores were originally made, correct?”

“Well, yes. I’m surprised that you know the exact number.”

“And I do believe there were five cores sent to America, one of which is currently unused after, well… the disaster? If there’s no one left to use it, what’s the harm in using it?”

***

That day was the luckiest day of my life.

It was the summer of my sophomore year of high school. My dad took me to an old junkyard, so we could find some old car to build. “Bonding time”, he called it.

I was walking through the towers of old, rusted cars, when I spotted a bright light. Like a moth to the flame, I moved closer and closer to it.

The sun was reflecting off of a small orb embedded in a bent-up chunk of scrap metal. I almost instantly recognized the red and blue on steel as Our Lady Liberty, the IS of Anna Weiss, America’s first representative, and the first pilot since the Alaska Treaty to die.

In typical fashion for me, I started unceremoniously ripping the thing apart; it was relatively easy, as the metal had weakened and rusted to some degree. I ripped off the last of the warped panels, and the core was exposed. If this really was Our Lady Liberty, this core was #063, which seemed to have a form of consciousness according to Weiss’ reports.

I had only ever seen cores documented in scientific journals featuring the emerging technology of the Infinite Stratos; I finally saw one up close. The pictures didn’t lie, either; dark grey, very reflective, almost blinding, obviously silicon.

I noticed a long crack almost running from pole to pole; I knew that was very bad news, but I didn’t know what it meant. Slowly, very slowly, I reached my hand out to the core… when my hand made contact, a bright flash erupted from the sphere, almost sending me reeling backward into the stack of scrap metal behind me. The flash seemed to emerge from the crack.

“Garrett! Garrett!” My dad was shouting. He rounded the corner, and saw me standing there. He came rushing up behind me. “There you are! Are you all right? ...What the hell was that flash? What are you looking at?”

I only said two words: “My future.”

* * *

“From there, I started building and programming; the next thing you know, I’ve got Onyx Striker built.”

“...You said that the core you found had a crack? Wouldn’t it have degraded?”

“Oh, it did,” I responded, “its energy output wasn’t much higher than that of a 9-volt battery at the time. However, I was able to fix it and get it back into proper working order.”

“How did you do that without the original blueprints?”

“Oh… ohhh…” I began to feel a pit in my stomach. I guess this is coming back to haunt me… I began to feel a bit uneasy. “...Remember about nine months back, when Tabane-hakasen’s laboratory got… hacked?”

She stared at me intently. “...You stole the blueprints to an IS core.”

“Hey, I never did a thing. I just paid some hacker online a thousand bucks to do it for me. All I know is the next morning, it’s in the news that her lab got hacked, and there’s an email in my inbox with the schematics for an IS Core.”

“...Right. I seem to recall the hacker went by the alias 5p4Zi3_f4n. His actual name was David Prince, I believe. The man never revealed why he hacked in during Interpol’s interrogation, but he was still sentenced to a year in prison.”

“Well, logistics aside…” I quickly wanted to move the conversation past this. “Onyx Striker’s weapons are dual tonfa energy blades; the barrels attached to the front are also plasma repeaters that-”

“Hold on, even with the aid of those blueprints, how were you able to repair that IS core? Those schematics are said to be completely indecipherable to anyone else!” Yamada-sensei must have just realized what that meant… I was hoping to avoid that point and miss higher-level classes. “Tabane-hakasen is supposed to be the only person in the world who’s able to construct or repair an IS Core! You must have a genius-level intellect to do that!”

I looked away from Yamada-sensei sheepishly. I started to rub the back of my neck with my hand. “...I’ll be honest, I am somewhat of a Wunderkind when it comes to technology. Most advances these days are done by men and women of science in their 20’s and 30’s, like Tabane-hakasen I assume, but I had the resources and initiative to completely reverse-engineer the core.” I laughed a bit; Yamada-sensei looked more than impressed. “Granted, while she must have had a multi-trillion yen lab to develop it, I could only use the extra room off to the side of my high school’s tech room; it would’ve only made for tens, maybe hundreds of thousands of dollars in damages if it blew up or something, but our tech club would be out of commission for a long time.”

“You completely reverse-engineered an IS core… in an extra room at your American high school… you really are a genius.” Yamada-sensei seemed absolutely enamored with me.

“Honestly, it’s more like I can use the resources at my disposal efficiently. Any time I was stuck on something on the blueprint, I’d ask for a second set of eyes to try and decipher it; the core had kind of turned into a class project. Other than that, the resources that Tabane-hakasen used are relatively easy to get ahold of. It’s just magnets, copper, and a sphere of silicon.”

“Really? It’s that easy to construct?” Yamada-sensei looked even more surprised.

“Yeah, and for any part that needed making, I scanned it into our 3D printer; I modified it to work with metal. The banding from 3D printing seems to increase the core’s power output; you could say I’ve improved on perfection.”

I could tell that Yamada-sensei was reeling from all of the information I’d just slung her way.

A small tingling sensation on my chest told me that Liberty wanted out; I quickly stood up. Yamada-sensei looked shocked; she must have thought I was turning down the offer.

I grabbed the golden chain around my neck, and lifted it to reveal a pendant; a solid piece of onyx, inlaid with gold leaf, to give the appearance of two mountain lions peering out from behind a sword. There were small flecks of light blue near the surface of the stone. I shouted a single command:  
“Let’s do this, Liberty!”

I was enveloped in a blinding light, so bright that it sent Yamada-sensei cowering behind her desk. I felt the cool rush of the plates of metal tighten over my chest and abs as the harness set in place. My hands grasped securely around simple plastic grips, each with five rings, one for each finger. The legs clamped around mine, tighter, tighter, and just a bit tighter as they secured. I heard the familiar rush of the jet turbines as they spun into life; the energy ports bursted with light blue energy as well. The pinprick jabs of the neural link hit the base of my neck as my thoughts became connected to Liberty’s. Before long, I was no longer Garrett Gordon; I had become the nine-foot, black-and-gold Infinite Stratos, Onyx Striker.

“Ugh, thank gawd, I was about ta suffocate in deah much lawngah…” I could hear Liberty’s thick Brooklyn accent quite clearly. Liberty was quite a unique core; there was only one other example of a self-aware IS core, in core #001, the core in an IS known as the White Knight. “Ugh, dammit, kid, ‘ave you been starin’ at hentai again?”

“What do you think, Yamada-sensei?” I stretched my arms out on either side of me, and two more bright flashes of light let out, quickly materializing into long, black bars capped, on the ends closest to the handles, in small steel barrels. “This is Onyx Striker. Like I was saying, Onyx Striker is equipped with dual energy tonfas and dual energy repeaters, as you can see here.”

Yamada-sensei was shocked. “Energy tonfas? Wouldn’t two energy blades sap at your shields horribly? And energy repeaters? How does it not use Equalizer? This is getting more interesting by the second!”

“Well, for one thing, Equalizer only affects your IS if you need more than one weapon; since the tonfas and repeaters are the same weapon, I can equip still more weapons if I need to. Also, I developed a high-power kinetic battery for each of my tonfas. I just have to constantly be moving to recharge them, and mobility happens to be one of Onyx Striker’s strong points.”

“Yeh, gib ‘em the ol’ runarownd!” Liberty was hype-manning my speech quite well.

Yamada-sensei looked absolutely stunned. “I assume the repeaters run on this same battery?”

“They do. The shots that the repeater is able to fire can travel about 100 meters before reaching the end of their range, and the rounds fire at a rate of about 600 per minute.”

“Jist like an AK Foahty-seven!” Liberty was starting to get on my nerves a bit. “But da batteries run out fast enough dat dey might as well be AKs.”

“Liberty, would you be so kind as to shut up?” I muttered.

I tried to keep my voice down, but Yamada-sensei heard me. “Liberty? Did you just say Liberty? As in Our Lady Liberty? Your IS uses the core from Our Lady Liberty?”

“Yes, I use Core #063, one of the few “Aware” cores. I believe that #063, and… #001 are the only Aware cores?”

“...Yes… you’re a veritable IS encyclopedia…” Yamada-sensei was staring intently at me, a dreamy look in her eyes; it was almost… like she was in love with me. Which was ridiculous, since she was a teacher at my new school. However, I suddenly got a ridiculous image in my head of the two of us as the bride and groom at a wedding.

“Ey, kid, don’ go fallin’ fah no teachah.” The tone of Liberty’s voice suddenly became very accosting, like that of a mother scolding her child for stealing a cookie. “Dat may be fine ovah heah, but we’ah from America, land o’ da free an’ all dat.”

“Whatever, mom, it wasn’t like I was interested anyway…” I rolled my eyes.

“...Ya know I can tell when ya roll yah eyes at me, right, kid?”

***

I deactivated Onyx Striker, and walked back over to my seat. Yamada-sensei slid off of the table and back into her seat. “My, my, I’m… very glad you decided to come here, Gordon-san, but our interview is not over yet. I would love to accept you right now, but sadly, I just can’t do that. So… what military experience do you have, if any?” Yamada-sensei began to take very deep, steadying breaths.

“Well… at my American high school, there was a program that was able to get students into the air force. ...Does that count?”

“Were you ever a part of this program?”

I needed to keep a straight face to pull off this joke. “...No. I have technically experienced the military, though, right? That’s ‘military experience’, right?” I could feel the straight face I was trying to hold start to crack.

Luckily, so was Yamada-sensei’s. She burst out into laughter before I did. Her laugh was high and pure, a bit like a child’s.

“Well, it would seem that question is answered! The interview process isn’t normally this long, but you certainly have impressed me!” Yamada-sensei let out a deep sigh as her laughter slowly died away. “In any event, I only need to ask one more question. You should feel very important, as this is only the third time in the school’s history that it’s needed to be asked.”

This piqued my interest; this question is very special if I’m the third person to ever receive it. “Go ahead… I’m listening.”

Yamada-sensei leaned over the table, her arms tucked under her voluptuous breasts. Her glasses had slid down her nose; she looked pretty hot… I needed to put those thoughts behind me, though -- she was one of my teachers now.

  
  
“You know this is essentially an all girl’s school, right?”


	2. Chapter 2

…

…

“...Say what?”

If my jaw could dislocate and I had skin and muscles of rubber, it would have hit the floor. IS Academy… was an… an… all-girl’s… school…! Ohhh, yes… OHHH, YES… Everyone back home is going to be so jealous… I couldn’t wait to write to Adam, or Cody, or Andrew, and get their letters back… Oh, I could almost taste the saltiness now…

“Ahem.” Yamada-sensei cleared her throat importantly. She rapped her knuckles on the table three times. “Gordon-san… are you okay?”

I snapped out of the image of a showerhead shooting salt onto the heads of my friends and back into the room with Yamada-sensei. It hadn’t gotten weird at that point, thank goodness.

***

...Yeah.

I have a bit of a tendency to get lost in my own thoughts.

Sometimes those thoughts lead me to some pretty weird places.

It usually ends in hentai.

It almost always ends in hentai.

***

Feeling the conversation dying down, I tried to pick things back up with the one question on my mind. “Is there a… particular reason why IS Academy is an all-girl’s school?”

Yamada-sensei folded her hands and set them on the table. “Well, it’s very simple… IS can only be operated by women; men like you are the rare exception.”

That was a bit confusing; something that only women can use, and not because feminists said so? Yes, it’s their dream, but… there needs to be some kind of an explanation.

“Hey, Yamada-sensei… is there a particular reason why women are the only people who can normally operate an IS?”

“I’m… not entirely sure. Not even Tabane-hakasen is able to explain it.” Yamada-sensei gave me a blank look of confusion.

I looked back just as blankly at her. “So… you have no explanation for why only women are able to operate IS, and I’m guessing that means that you can’t explain why I, being a man, can operate one.”

“I’m afraid not. I wish I could give you an answer, I really do.” She looked legitimately upset; she really wanted to help me, to give me an answer.

“...You mentioned something about how the question needed to be asked to three people, with me being the third. Who exactly were the other two?”

Yamada-sensei visibly brightened up at the change of topic. “A very good question, I’m glad you asked. The first man to ever join this school was Orimura Ichika-kun, the younger brother of Orimura Chifuyu-sensei.”

“Ah, yes, Orimura Chifuyu! I’d heard that she was teaching here! If I’m not mistaken, her IS was actually White Knight.” Wait… something about that last statement wasn’t right -- at least not with what I learned about Japanese.

“That’s exactly right! You really are an encyclopedia of IS knowledge.” She was looking at me with that dreamy expression on her face again; she began to sway back and forth, as if to the beat of some inaudible love song. She must either really like smart guys or be really lonely to be falling for someone like me, having just met.

“...Yeah. And… who was the second person to be asked the question?”

“Ah, that would be the alias of Charlotte Dunois-san, the representative of France; when she first sent in her application, she wrote her name down as Charles Dunois, trying to pass herself off as a boy. Of course, ever since Orimura-kun joined, we’ve tried our hardest to accept the boys who try to join.”

Wait… Orimura-KUN? Really? Did she really just call Ichika- oh, whatever, this is gonna be kinda weird for the first few days, just go along with it for as long as you can, Gordon, I thought to myself.

“So… Yamada-sensei… what class will I be joining? I assume there are multiple year 2 classes.”

“Ah, yes, you will be joining class 2-1, taught by Orimura-sensei; it just so happens that Orimura-kun will also be one of your classmates. Isn’t it interesting how scheduling works out, sometimes?”

“Okay… doesn’t exactly seem like coincidence that the two guys in the whole school are in the same class to me, but okay. One more question…” I got a small smirk on my face; it was a ridiculous question, I knew that, but I had to ask it. “...How many girlfriends does Ichika have?”

“...Girlfriends?”

“Yeah.” A stupid grin spread quickly across my face. “How many girls is Ichika dating?”

“...Oh, my, um… I will say this; he doesn’t exactly seem to be… interested in the girls.” Yamada-sensei smiled sheepishly; her cheeks reddened, and she giggled softly.

“WHAT? How could any hot-blooded, self-respecting man not be absolutely DROWNING IN- Ohh… ohhhh noooo…” I could feel my stomach dropping like it does on a rollercoaster. Ichika’s… not interested in the girls here… or any… oh, no…

“...Now, now, calm down, that doesn’t necessarily mean he’d be interested in you, it just means he’s not interested in the others.” Yamada-sensei rubbed the back of her neck ruefully. Her fingernails tapped on the desk nervously. “I’m… sure that you’re fine. It’s just that… well, he’s never been seen being more than friends with at least one of the girls. Either he’s very good at keeping things private, especially in a place like this, or he’s… well, let’s just hope he’s good at keeping things private.”

Before long, I thought to myself, something’s gonna happen, I can just tell. It’s only a matter of time…

“Ah, Gordon-san, on a much less awkward note, the day before classes start -- today, in other words -- is also the day of the opening assembly! And it looks like…” Yamada-sensei looked down at her watch; her face quickly morphed into one of shock. “Oh no! We’re already late! Really quickly, I need to give you this.”

Yamada-sensei rolled her chair back and pulled out the top drawer as she moved; it opened fully with a satisfying snap. She pulled out a small card, about the size of a credit card, and handed it to me. It was light blue, and had my name embossed on it in gold; there was also a series of golden tabs along the bottom.

“This card is your key to everything in the school.” Yamada-sensei continued. “Everything from lunch to your dorm. I’m afraid we can’t wait on ceremony right now, however; we need to get you to the auditorium right away!”

***

I was kinda surprised at how quickly Yamada-sensei ran.

Then again, many of the girls I had ever tried to run with were either my mom or relatively overweight, so I didn’t have a very good comparison.

We dashed along the back pathways of the school, the massive auditorium growing in our field of view. I glanced over frequently at Yamada-sensei. She had started working up a good sweat, and her massive breasts bounced back and forth rhythmically; it was almost hypnotic… Gah, Gordon, that may be cool here, but regardless, you gotta get your head outta the gutter, I thought to myself as my head swiveled back to its original position.

Eventually, we walked up to a very basic metal door; Yamada-sensei took out a similar card to mine and inserted it into a small slot next to the handle. A small green light lit up, and a loud click sounded from the crack between the door and its frame.

I grabbed the handle and held the door open. “Ladies first,” I began, but Yamada-sensei cut me off.

“I appreciate the manners, but I need to be elsewhere. Go into the room and wait until your name is called.”

“Very well.” I stepped through the door, but not before noticing three heads poking around the corner of the building.

~~~

“Hey, Honne, do you know who that is?” A girl with short brown hair was gripping the side of the building, squinting to get a good look at the new kid staring at them.

“...Mmm-mmm…” The girl in the fox kigurumi, apparently Honne, shook her head. “...I think it’s a boy, though…”

“Really?” A girl with long red hair tied back in a ponytail craned her neck to try and get a closer look. “Oh my gosh… if there’s another boy going to IS Academy…”

“...I wanna talk to him…!” Honne started bouncing up and down on her heels, clapping her hands (obscured by her sleeves) together.

“Hey! Honne, you got to talk to Ichika first! I wanna talk to him first this time! Oh, I bet he’s so nice…” The girl with the ponytail put her hands together and rested them on her cheek.

“Yuzu, you can barely talk when Ichika’s around. If anyone should talk to him, it’s me, Aikawa Kiyoka!” The girl with the short brown hair stuck her finger in the air, resolved. “In fact, I’m gonna go-”

The door snapped closed; the three friends let out a collective sigh.

“He’s gone…” Honne muttered.

~~~

The back room I stepped into was very dark, but that might have merely been the coloring choice for the room; the walls and ceiling were painted black, the baseboards were gray, and the floor was a black laminate with white grout. Set up in the room was a long-legged chair, aluminium frame, with red leather cushions and a short back; it only reached up to about my tailbone, but it was enough to keep my back straight.

I heard a voice bouncing off of the walls of the auditorium.

“Thank you, thank you!” it called out. “To all you new students, welcome, one and all, to Infinite Stratos Academy. I am your student council president, Sarashiki Tatenashi. As I look out on all of your bright, excited faces, it fills me with a great sense of duty to know that I’m the one leading you.”

I hopped down from the chair, and peeked around the corner of the door between the green room and stage. Standing at a podium in the center of the stage was a girl, easily a third year student, with light blue hair. She was in a normal IS Academy getup, a white jacket with black and red highlights and a short white skirt. However, she also wore long maroon stockings, black loafers, and a light yellow vest. She certainly did have fashion sense, it looked good, but it also looked a bit ridiculous when you realized she had a bright yellow tie… and naturally red eyes.

I noticed the tie (but particularly her eyes) when she glanced over in my direction. As soon as our eyes made contact, she smiled; it was a cheeky, playful smile, like that of a prankster. I quickly dove behind a wall; for the first time today, I felt really out of place in my old olive t-shirt and blue jeans. My face started to heat up; she was really cute.

“Well, now that everything’s in order,” Tatenashi continued, “A little birdie told me that we’ve got a very special new student here at IS Academy. This new student is coming all the way from America, tall, blonde, with some very stylish glasses. Please, join me in giving a round of applause for our newest male student: Garrett Gordon.”

I heard quiet muttering from the auditorium:

“Male student?”

“Another boy?”

“I hope he’s cute…”

“I wonder what he’s like…”

…And other things like that.

I began the short walk to the stage, to my new life… my new life surrounded by girls. It was exciting, and absolutely mortifying at the same time; each of these women had the training and ability to kill me at a moment’s notice… It was like my footsteps were mic’d to the entire auditorium; as soon as I took one step on the hardwood floor, the audience went absolutely silent.

I heard small gasps from one side of the auditorium as I stepped out from behind the curtains. With every step, more eyes locked onto me; it felt kinda weird to have hundreds of eyes analyzing me with the same level of almost tangible interest. I wondered if this was how it felt when an impala is sized up by a hyena on the Serengeti… no, this was worse. These creatures weren’t looking to eat me… they were looking to do something worse.

Date me.

I walked to the center of the stage -- well, relatively center -- turned on my heels to face the audience… and waved.

Really, Gordon? Is that all you’re gonna do? WAVE??? I screamed at myself in my head. Before anything else happens, just… SAY something, ANYTHING!

Every single eye, including that of the student council president, was watching me with rapt attention. Tatenashi was resting her right arm on the podium, and put her left hand on her hip.

“...Hajimemashite, mina.” (“Nice to meet you, everyone.”) My left hand, which was still in the air after waving, gripped the back of my neck. I slowly rubbed, and smiled and chuckled.

...Nice. Nice. Smooth. The voice in my head suddenly became really sarcastic.

**“OH MY GOD, ANOTHER BOY!!! AAAAAAAAAA!!!”**


	3. Chapter 3

A hurricane?

That ain’t got nothin’ on the force of nature that is a fangirl’s scream.

Before I knew what was happening or why my ears were ringing so loudly, I had been knocked off of my feet and onto my back. As I propped myself up on my elbows, I could see hands flailing at the edge of the stage, pairs of eyes peeking up to get a closer look; Tatenashi was in hysterics, pounding her fist against the podium.

As I stood up, however, Tatenashi and all the other girls all went silent again.

“That gorgeous blonde hair…” I heard from stage right. Unconsciously, I ruffled my hair a bit and brushed some stray strands out of my face as I stood back up.

“And his glasses are really cool…” I heard from stage left. I blinked a couple times; my glasses were a bit smudged. I whipped them off my face, fogged up the lenses, and wiped them on my t-shirt. I had unintentionally lifted up just enough of my shirt to show off my abs; I heard lots of gasps, a few little squeals from the audience at large.

As I pushed them back onto my face, I heard a small clique of girls whisper to each other, “He’s got a certain flair, don’t you think…?” On the spot, I did three full spins on my toes, and did a lean like in Smooth Criminal; every little thing that the girls talked about that they thought were cool gave me a little confidence boost each.

“And that t-shirt is just tight enough to show off his build…” Tatenashi batted her eyes at me. I flexed a bit; I got a dreamy sigh from the audience at large. Tatenashi looked down, blushed, and giggled into her fingers. “...and he sure seems happy to be here.”

I froze, a look of absolute horror on my face. In all this time, I’d paid no attention to what kind of effect these kinds of compliments had on me. Apparently, they had stimulated more than my ego…. My face felt flushed. I started sweating like crazy.

A bright flash; Tatenashi laughed out loud. “Oh my God! That was perfect! I knew that would get a reaction from you, but that? That’s just pure gold! Don’t worry, you’re fine, nothing’s showing!”

Campus security came in, fully suited up in IS, and directed the students back to their seats. Reluctantly, they all meandered back to their seats, which were (unsurprisingly) all in the front two or three rows.

Tatenashi clapped her hands together. “Now then,” she continued, “let’s get on with the interview.”

“Wait… interview?” I asked. “What interview? I was never told about an interview!”

I heard a loud scraping from behind us; I turned around to see three janitors moving a wooden coffee table and two big red armchairs into proper positioning for a talk show. White, black, and red banners featuring the IS Academy insignia in blue dropped down from the ceiling.

Tatenashi walked over to the chair closer to stage right, the traditional seat for a talk show host. She plopped down in the seat, and propped her right foot up on her left leg. She rested her head on her right hand, the arm of which was resting on the arm of the chair. She had a very dreamy look on her face, slowly letting her head roll along her knuckles, like her cheek was dough for kneading.

Slowly, I walked over to the other chair, all the while watching Tatenashi closely. She did seem like the type to get a kick out of making others feel uncomfortable, that much was certain. She was twirling a long, thin object in her left fingers; there was a loud rushing through the speakers -- that must be the microphone.

My suspicions were confirmed as soon as I sat down in my chair. Tatenashi raised one of the ends of the thin object, the end with a few small LEDs under clear plastic, up to her lips and began speaking; when she did, her voice came echoing loudly throughout the auditorium.

“So…” Tatenashi blinked twice, and sighed. “...Tell me your name.”

I’d always wanted to be on a talk show; just being another guy going to this school was as good a reason as any. I needed to stay cool for this entire interview, be funny, chill, and a bit of a smart-ass at times… like in response to this.

“...Really?” I leaned back in my chair, let my arms rest on the chair’s arms, crossed one leg over the other, and looked at Tatenashi over the rim of my glasses. “You shout my name to this crowd who come rushing me, and then you want me to say my name again?”

Tatenashi giggled; the rest of the audience laughed too. “Well, I may have mispronounced it, or not called you how you want. Tell us all now.”

I raised the index and middle fingers of my left hand to my temple, and moved them away in a little salute. “Yo. I’m Garrett Gordon. The teachers can call me Gordon-san, my little Year 1 buddies can call me Gordon-senpai, and any of you can call me Garrett-san. Those of you interested in me, however… feel free to call me Garrett-kun.”

Tatenashi giggled again. She gave me a very sultry look. “Oh, I think you’ll be hearing that quite a lot… Garrett-kun.”

I laughed once, surprised. “Well, you certainly wasted no time!”

“And you’re a… Year 2 student, correct?” Tatenashi placed both of her feet on the floor, set her elbows on her knees, and rested her head on the palm of her left hand; in her right hand, she held the microphone out to me.

“Indeed I am. Why do you ask?” I replied slyly. I had a very good feeling why she was asking, I just wanted her to confirm my suspicions.

“Well, since you are a second year student… you’re actually in the most available group of students. It would be kinda weird if a first and third year student started dating, wouldn’t it?”

“Yeah, I’d have to wonder what the first year was getting out of it.” That got a laugh from the entire audience.

“Now then, if you could use one word to describe yourself, what would it be?”

I sat there and thought for a moment. “...Does ‘can’t’ count?”

Tatenashi laughed again. “Okay then… how about one sentence?”

I sat and thought for another moment. “...Gentle giant otaku gamer who can handle himself in fights. How’s that?”

“That sounds good. Now, when you’re not learning more about your IS or spending time with friends, what do you like to do?”

“I believe I’ve already answered this in the previous question. Video games, anime, manga, and martial arts.”

Tatenashi seemed interested by the last item on the list. “Ooh, martial arts? What do you know? Karate, jiu jitsu, judo?”

“I actually don’t know any Japanese martial arts. I remember little to none of my tae-kwon-do training, but I did train in muay thai for a good few months; I can’t do many of the trips anymore, but I can still do it pretty well.”

“Ooh, well, you’ll have to teach some of us sometime; we’d all love to learn from you, riiiiight?” Tatenashi turned to the audience, who immediately began screaming again. This time… it didn’t shock me as much; that might have merely been because I was sitting down, though.

Tatenashi leaned forward, holding the mic close to her lips rather sensually, like she was sucking on the end of a pencil. “Let’s get serious now…” Her voice lowered to a sexy growl. “...are you actually interested in girls?”

She held the mic close to me; I could sort of smell her lip gloss on the end… it was strawberry… I wouldn’t mind strawberry. “Well, if we’re being completely honest here… I’m feeling especially excited to know that there will be so much female attention on me in the coming months.”

“Do you have anyone… special back in America? A special someone with whom you’ll be sharing a long-distance relationship?”

“I left all of my previous feelings for any girls in America back at the airport. I am single and unburdened.” That wasn’t true at all, I would always have eyes for Ella, but I was an ocean away from her; now wasn’t the time for those feelings to bubble back up.

“That’s good to hear, that’s… very good to hear. Finally…” Tatenashi leaned against the left arm of her chair, and let her body drape over it. Likewise, she let her right leg dangle over the edge of the right arm of her chair. “What do you think when you see a girl like this?”

...Uh-oh. Panic mode activate…

“...Well, ah…” I could feel my face becoming steadily dewier. “...You’re either suffering from heat stroke, or…” I awkwardly cleared my throat. “...or ‘opening up’.”

Tatenashi sat up, and pulled her right leg in. She began running her hands along her lower leg. I could feel a steady tugging from the front of my pants.

“How about this?”

“Umm…” I started to feel a bit dizzy. “You’ve either got a bad itch along that part of your leg, or… you’re trying to ‘draw me in’.”

Finally, Tatenashi turned forward again, but with her legs in a much… wider stance than before. With her right hand, she slowly rubbed along her thighs. With her left, she held the microphone close to her mouth, and whispered:

“How… about-”

“Okay. I get it.” I couldn’t take this anymore. If she did too much more, I’d be out of my seat and in hers, no matter if there was an audience or not. “You’re beautiful, but you don’t need to act like an AV actress to show me that.”

At the word beautiful, Tatenashi instantly perked up. She blushed, and started to look away from me, hiding her face with her hand. “I’m… beautiful…? Please, don’t… say that… here…” I didn’t need to be psychic to know what was going through her head; she liked being called beautiful.

“Eyy, what’s wrong, gorgeous? Are you one of those… shy… types…? Oh, jeez, what have I done?”

I looked out at the audience; each of them were looking either at me or at Tatenashi with killing intent. They stood up, and slowly walked toward the stage. Many had materialized weapons; swords, drones, SMGs, even entire IS in some cases… they surrounded the stage, spilling out of the doors to the green rooms on either side. There was nowhere to run.

“...Yeah, kid… yeh’ve stepped intah sum deep shit now.” I could hear Liberty’s thick Brooklyn accent cracking under nerves… if AIs could get nervous.

“...Yeah, thanks for captioning my nightmare, Liberty…”

This was a textbook scene from every horror movie ever; everything’s going absolutely fine and normal, then something weird happens, and suddenly everyone’s gone completely crazy. Except the girls surrounding us weren’t zombies, they were still fully alive… I just seriously questioned their ability to keep us that way.

“Uh… hey… that’s nothing to say against you… fine… young women, girls, whatever you want me to call you. You’re all really cute in your own way.” I had a massive, stupid grin plastered on my face. I slowly backed against the backdrop as the circle of girls tightened around me.

Slowly, one by one, their weapons dematerialized… and with another fangirl scream, they all rushed me at once.

I could feel hands grasping at my face, my shirt, my pants, anything that was on me or was me. I felt a large sweep of cloth across my face, and the next thing that I knew, my glasses were gone.

“...I got ‘em…! ...I got his glasses…!” I recognized the voice amidst the din as the one belonging to the girl who wore the fox kigurumi, Honne. “...Whoa, he can’t see very well… now I feel bad…”

“Just bring ‘em here, Honne, and we’ll bring them to him as soon as the mob settles.” That voice… I think her name was… Yuzu?

***

The mob eventually subsided (with some help from campus security), but not before I shook out my clothes and fifty or so strips of paper with phone numbers fell out of my shirt alone.

“Oooooi! Garrett-kuuuuun!” I heard a voice call out to me. It certainly sounded familiar, but I couldn’t quite place it immediately. I turned around, and making a motion at me ecstatically was a mass of flesh tone and white with a little bit of brown on top. I didn’t have my glasses on at that moment, so I couldn’t make out any more than that.

A bright yellow mass moved up close to me; as it got closer, I began to make out slightly auburn hair, sleepy yellow eyes, and an equally sleepy smile.

“...Here are your glasses…” Honne took the temples of my glasses in her cloth-covered hands and slid the earpieces over my ears. At last, sight! Honne gave me a warm, sleepy smile.

A few seconds passed -- Honne didn’t move. Now that I had my glasses back, and she wasn’t staring at me from around the corner of a building, I could get a better look at her. Her nose was small, but it suited her face well; her cheekbones weren’t too high, but they were slender… her lips, parted ever so slightly in a sleepy grin, almost beckoned me to them… her neck, just slightly exposed by her hood, was just as enticing… my heart started beating faster and faster.

Honne blinked. The sleepiness of her face quickly died away in a sea of pink; she started blushing quite brightly. The tone wasn’t much deeper than a sakura blossom, but it was enough of a contrast with the rest of her skin to be noticeable. She started to turn away from me, and made a little waving motion to me with her fingers; she must have been somewhat reclusive normally, and not really been noticed much before.

“Ah-hem.” I heard a very forceful throat-clearing from directly behind us. The girl with the short brown hair, Kiyoka, was looking slightly grumpy, accentuated by her crossed arms and incessantly tapping foot, almost to the beat of some speed metal song. After I looked away from Honne, however, she opened up almost instantly.

“Salutations!” she began enthusiastically. “I’m Aikawa Kiyoka, your classmate! Nice to meet you outside of an interview!” She extended her hand out extremely forcefully… I couldn’t tell if she was forcing herself to do this, or if she was just normally this exuberant.

“...Yeah.” I slowly reached out my hand, and reciprocated the gesture, grasping her hand firmly. “It’s nice to meet you.”

She started blushing a bit. “I’ve never actually… held hands with a boy before…” she giggled softly to herself.

“Oh, Gordon-san! A moment, if you will!” I recognized the voice of Yamada-sensei almost immediately. I turned back to the three friends, shrugged, and walked away.

Once I got over to Yamada-sensei, she handed me a slip of paper. On it was the number 1025.

“This is your dorm number; you’ll need to get over there quickly and make the most of moving in! And remember: tomorrow morning, you’ll report to room 2-1. Once again, welcome to IS Academy!” Yamada-sensei finished her sentence with a small bow.

 


	4. Chapter 4

The long walk to the “10--" dorm building, then the ascent up three flights of stairs to the "102-" rooms left me slightly winded, but at least the coloring was pleasant and hotel-like. The wall sconces were made of warped squares of glass attached to the wall by aluminium bolts. The carpet was an interesting lavender color, which was a fairly interesting combination with the tans and browns of the rest of the hall.

I dragged my recently exhausted body down the hall, looking above the doors as I went. 1021… 1023… ah, 1025. I took my card, which I had hung from a lanyard around my neck, and swiped the card along the card reader above the handle, gold detector pins facing the reader.

A small green light turned on, a short electronic ping sounded from the lock, and a loud click sounded from the door.

“Come in…?” A slightly confused voice called from within. I took a step back; the voice was male. Coincidence indeed, Yamada-sensei… coincidence indeed…

I turned the long aluminium handle; the door swung inward. I stepped into more lavender carpet, more tan and brown walls and decor, but with bright white appliances and dishware, and with two small ferns on the drawers along the back of the room. Said drawers surrounded a sliding glass door leading to a balcony with an excellent view of the ocean.

Lounging on the bed closest to the door was a young man, about my age, with black hair and brown eyes. He was already dressed up in his IS Academy uniform, and had removed his shoes; quickly remembering Japanese etiquette, I did the same and left mine by the door.

“Uh, hi. I’m Garrett Gordon, I’m your new roomm-”

“I know who you are. I was there at the opening ceremony, same as everyone else. I’m Ichika.” He took one of his hands out from behind his head and gave a very noncommittal wave before allowing it to return to its original position.

“...Okay… I take it you’re lying on your bed. And what’s with the attitude?” I slowly walked over to what I assumed was now my bed and sat down on the edge.

“Nothing, really. Um… hey… could I do something really quick? It might seem kinda weird.” Ichika sat up and propped up his body with his left arm.

“Uh… sure…” I was a bit confused what weird meant… boy, was I in for a surprise.

Ichika didn’t say anything more, he just stood up from his bed. He walked over to me… and reached straight for my crotch.

“Okay, hey, hey, whoa, WHOA, WHOA, WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU’RE-”

Grope. Grope, grope.

Ichika whipped his hand away and wiped it on his pants. His attitude instantly dropped. “Ah, thank goodness, you are actually a guy.”

“Okay… what the hell was that?” I was about ready to go crazy on him. He just groped my balls… groped them for absolutely no reason!

Ichika grimaced; he looked away from me, obviously embarrassed. “I’m really sorry about that, it’s just… I had to check if you were a guy. You see…” Ichika sighed. “...I’ve been confused once before.”

“...Confused? What?” This I had to hear. He thought being straight was being confused?

“...My friend, Charlotte, for awhile I thought she was a guy named Charles. I was starting to open up to her, until I found out that she was a girl. Then I couldn’t talk with her as easily.”

“...What do you mean, ‘couldn’t talk with her as easily’?” I was starting to calm down, but I was still pretty angry.

“I mean… there are some things that I would rather talk about with a guy than a girl.” He shrugged and looked away from me. “Like… video games. Family issues. The other girls at the school. I feel like I can really open up with another guy.”

“So… you’re not gay?”

“Oh, don’t be ridiculous! The only other way that I would’ve been able to check if you were a guy would’ve been for you to show me, and that’s just disgusting.”

“Don’t you think it would’ve been easier to, oh, I don’t know, check my application?” There were so many easier ways to check than groping me! I wanted to scream at him; he was so dense!

“No, not really; Charlotte lied on her application, claiming to be named Charles Dunois. This was the easiest, and least disgusting, way I could think of off hand. But yeah, I’m not gay.”

“Well… that’s good to know." I breathed a heavy sigh; my fists, tightly clenched just a moment prior, slacked.

***

After that awkward moment, we started talking about more than our sexual preferences (much to my thanks). It turned out that Ichika was interested in fighting games, he liked hip-hop, and we had similar tastes in anime; they were all primarily gory and fanservice-y. One of the most interesting things he told me, though, was the fact that he trained in kendo from a very young age.

"Really? Kendo? You, sir, have just improved my opinion of you."

Ichika chuckled. "Well, I never really paid it much mind. It was always just something I did with my friend Houki."

"Houki? Who's that?" This was the first time in the conversation someone other than ourselves had come up; my interest was piqued.

"Oh, yeah, Houki's one of my friends; she actually attends here."

"Wait, you're in the same high school as your… childhood friend? How's that… treatin' ya? How ya doin' with that?" I had a sly smirk on my face; I knew what “childhood friend” usually meant, at least in anime.

Ichika started waving his hands in front of him madly. “No, no, it’s not like that, it’s like… I don’t know what it’s like.” He sighed and looked down.

“Hey, since we’re on the topic of girls… why don’t you tell me a little bit about this school?”

“Well…” Ichika got a very contemplative look on his face. “Uhh… Chifuyu-neesan is one of the teachers here, there are plenty of clubs, there’s also, uhh… there’s a party at least once a trimester, the exams are difficult if you don’t really understand IS, and it’s kinda weird to be around so many girls at once.”

“Weird? I’d think that would be heaven on earth!” I was a bit surprised by Ichika’s uses of words like confused and weird, when pleasantly surprised and paradise would work so much better with the topics.

“Well…” Ichika rubbed the back of his neck ruefully; he looked away from me and laughed nervously. “...A number of times, I’ve been called the ‘mutual property’ of the others. They’re all really nice to me, unless I try to be nice to one person… then they all try to kill me, or get the praise themselves--are you even listening?”

I was sitting on my bed, giggling to myself. In my head, I was on the beach, surrounded by girls trying to put sunscreen on me… then they were suddenly naked… and all reaching for me at once… Ichika shook my shoulder; I snapped back out of my head, and back into our dorm.

“...I’m sorry, what were we talking about?” I blinked a couple of times, my senses returning to the normal flow of time.

Ichika sighed. “We were talking about how weird it is to deal with the girls at this school… and my friends actually make me feel it the worst. Since we spend so much time together, they’re a lot more aggressive, and they make me feel a lot worse for little misunderstandings.”

“...And exactly how many of these close friends have you made in your time at this school?”

Ichika rested his cheek on a fist and counted on his fingers. “Let’s see… I already brought up Houki… then there’s Cecilia… Ling… Charlotte… Laura… Tatenashi-san… her little sister Kanzashi… that’s about it, seven.”

“You have seven friends at this school… a fairly small number, but certainly respectable. If all of them came over at once, you could have a pretty nice party.”

Ichika started blushing; I had no clue he was one to blush, but I suppose it made sense with what I’d learned about him so far.

"Please don't bring up parties when talking about them. I'd rather not go into it now."

“Anyway,” I continued, “how many of these girls have told you directly that they like you?”

“...None of them, actually.” Ichika shrugged.

I stared at Ichika, dumbfounded. After a few seconds of letting his words sink in, I busted up. “Oh my gosh, seriously??? Dude, you have been royally friendzoned!”

“...Royally? Friendzoned?” Ichika was looking confused at me again. I really need to stop using American turns of phrase…

“...Sorry about that, in this case, royally means ‘extremely’, and friendzoned is a term when someone you like only thinks of you as a friend.”

“...Oh. Okay. I guess that makes sense.” Ichika slowly nodded to himself. “It sounds kinda weird in Japanese, though.”

“So tell me a little bit about each of them. I’d like to know more about these friends of yours.” I rested my head on the palm of my hand, and rested my elbow on my knee.

“All right then.” Ichika swung his feet back onto his bed and stuck his hands back behind his head. “Well, going in order of when I first met them at IS Academy… that would start with Houki. She’s kind, but tends to have a short fuse. Cecilia was kinda mean to me when we first met and she insulted me a lot, but she can also be fairly soft-spoken, a side of her that I learned about once we became friends.”

“Cecilia sounds… interesting. I take it she comes from a wealthy family?”

“Yeah, actually. Ling is very active, but can tend to be kinda mean at times. Charlotte is also very quiet, nice, and hardworking. Laura was really mean to me when we first met, but now it seems like she’s almost trying to keep my other friends away from me.”

“Mm-hmm. Sounds good.” I was already making a little checklist in my head of who I might like to date… a small part of me felt like a bit of a douchebag for doing that, but they hadn’t actually confessed to him. There was still a chance.

“Tatenashi is… well, I don’t really know how to describe Tatenashi, but I’ll try… playful? That’s about as close as I can get.”

I chuckled. “Oh, trust me, I get what you mean by ‘playful’, Ichika.”

“And her little sister, Kanzashi, is kinda shy, kinda antisocial.”

I smiled and nodded as Ichika finished the list. “Okay, very interesting.”

“Yeah, well, those are all my friends. Why… why did you ask, Garrett?”

I kicked back on my new bed. I took a sidelong glance at Ichika, a sly smirk slowly spreading across my face. I knew exactly the question I wanted to ask him.

“So… do you like any of them?”

“Of course I do.”

“Okay.” That wasn’t the answer I expected at all; I was suddenly intrigued. “Who do you like, then…?”

“I like everyone. We’re all friends.”

My smile suddenly dropped. I began to understand why Ichika wasn’t dating anyone at this school. “So, you don’t, like… have a thing for one of them or anything?”

“What? Don’t be ridiculous. That would ruin our friendship.” He looked over at me like I just said something ridiculous, like that the sky was red, or that grass tasted like fish.

“And you’re absolutely certain none of them like you?” I was completely confused now.

“Well… yeah. Although… they did get mad at me for inviting them all to a waterpark this past summer.”

“What? Do tell, a waterpark sounds like fun.”

“Yeah.” Ichika snorted, and continued. “I invite them all to a waterpark to celebrate the last day of summer, right? I run up behind them because I was late, but suddenly, they’re all looking at me angry.”

“What? Why were they- wait wait wait wait wait. Did you tell them you were inviting everyone?”

“Well… directly, only Laura, and she got really mad at me for some reason. She was the one who told me about it, so maybe that’s why she was mad.”

“Were you with everyone else when she brought it up?” I could feel my anger from earlier returning, but this time, not at something Ichika did… no, this time, I was angry at who Ichika was. And what he was… was dense.

“Well… no. Uh, hey… are you okay? Your eye is twitching.”

“...Baka yaro.” (“...Dumbass.”)

Ichika looked taken aback. “What’s with the insult?”

My hands re-clenched. My eyes sealed closed. I began to take deep breaths to try and calm myself… it didn’t help.

I shouted at the top of my lungs, “THEY LIKE YOU, YA DUMBASS.”

Ichika was even more taken aback. “Huh?”

“You didn’t tell anyone other than Laura that you were planning to invite everyone to this waterpark. Every single one of them thought you were asking them on a DATE, just the two of you! Which is why, when they inevitably got angry at each other, then at you, it should have been clear. So I’ll say it again: THEY FUCKING LIKE YOU, YA DUMBASS!”

I couldn’t deal with him anymore. I thought he was boring, but this… this was just ridiculous. I stormed out of the room.

***

I stamped out of the room, furious with how much of a moron my new roommate was. Five girls, all of whom get angry at him because he didn’t hold them in higher regard than any of the others. They probably only like him because he's... well, was the only guy at this school. It sounded absolutely ridiculous, but for a long time, he had been the only guy at the school. It made sense… but no amount of logic was stopping my anger, not now.

I rounded the corner; the stairwell was in sight -- I needed some fresh air, no matter how long the walk was.

Wham!

A door opened up in front of me with enough force to knock me back a good foot or two. I heard a muffled grunt from behind the door. The young woman behind the door had a rough Russian accent. It sounded familiar…

“Ey, smotri, kuda idesh', tupitsa.” She said angrily. She had long black hair, grey eyes, and was very tall, even taller than me. However, she was very curvy, height aside. She also wore glasses, and wore flesh-toned lipstick. She was pretty hot.

My internet gaming friend from Russia was also female, and interested in IS, but she never had a webcam… granted, neither did I, so we didn’t know what we looked like. I didn’t care if it was her or not, though; I was smitten.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Send me feedback so I can tell my friend what people think!


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